Korobov Wins Sunway Sitges Alongside Entertaining Tiebreaks

Leading the tournament from start to finish, Anton Korobov of Ukraine won the 5,000-euro first prize at the Sunway Sitges tournament. A series of entertaining blitz tiebreaks decided the lower prizes.

After his fine performance at the Grand Chess Tour event in Bucharest, Korobov also did quite well in Sitges. His 6/6 start was the foundation for his tournament victory.

After his draw with Vassily Ivanchuk in round seven, Korobov was still half a point ahead of the pack. Two players were trailing him: Vasif Durarbayli of Azerbaijan and Abhimanyu Puranik of India.

A draw with Durarbayli was enough for Korobov to keep the lead as Puranik lost his game in round eight. The leader's new opponent for the penultimate round was the American youngster Awonder Liang, who had surprisingly defeated Ivanchuk.

"I was already very happy when I saw the pairings," Liang said later on the live broadcast. "If you told me I would play Ivanchuk like any time in my life, that would just be amazing. That was why I came here, to be able to play great players like him."

To beat the other strong Ukrainian was too much to ask for Liang. Playing a Grand Prix Attack setup, the American's thematic pawn push f4-f5 was not correct as all ideas with Bh6 would be easy for Black to parry. Korobov said he was planning to sacrifice the exchange, and all of his remaining pieces would be strong while White wouldn't have a clear plan.

With his special kind of humor, Korobov discussed this game in the studio on the final day, after he had drawn his last-round game with German GM Andreas Heimann.

The other big difference is how Stober deals with players finishing in a tie. Many open tournaments don't have a playoff, but having playoffs for second to eighth places is definitely rare. Only the Sants Open in Barcelona is an event we can think of that does something similar.

Adding to the show element, these tiebreaks are held outside on a terrace in front of the hotel with palm trees and the Mediterranean Sea as a splendid backdrop for a few dozen spectators.

For these tiebreaks only the top eight of the final standings were eligible play. Therefore, seven players were involved (as Korobov had ended clearly first). Before Durarbayli and Rasmus Svane played for second place, Heimann and Puranik had played with Amin Tabatabaei (Iran), Li Di (China) and Timur Gareyev (U.S.) for places four to eight.